Koryo-saram
Encyclopedia
Koryo-saram is the name which ethnic Koreans
in the post-Soviet states
use to refer to themselves. Approximately 500,000 ethnic Koreans reside in the former Soviet Union
, primarily in the now-independent states of Central Asia
. There are also large Korean communities in southern Russia
(around Volgograd
), the Caucasus
, and southern Ukraine
. These communities can be traced back to the Koreans who were living in the Russian Far East
during the late 19th century.
There is also a separate ethnic Korean community on the island of Sakhalin
, typically referred to as Sakhalin Koreans
. Some may identify as Koryo-saram, but many do not. Unlike the communities on the Russian mainland, which consist mostly of immigrants from the late 19th century and early 20th century, the ancestors of the Sakhalin Koreans came as immigrants from Gyeongsang
and Jeolla
provinces in the late 1930s and early 1940s, forced into service by the Japanese government to work in coal mines in Sakhalin (then known as Karafuto Prefecture
) in order to fill labour shortages caused by World War II
.
from which "Korea" was derived. The name Soviet Korean was also used, more frequently before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russians may also lump Koryo-saram under the general label koreytsy ; however, this usage makes no distinctions between ethnic Koreans of the local nationality and the Korean nationals (citizens of South and North Koreas).
In Standard Korean, the term "Koryo-saram" is typically used to refer to historical figures from the Goryeo dynasty; to avoid ambiguity, Korean speakers use a word Goryeoin ' onMouseout='HidePop("52553")' href="/topics/Hanja">Hanja
: 高麗人, meaning the same as "Koryo-saram") to refer to ethnic Koreans in the post-Soviet states. However, the Sino-Korean
morpheme "-in" (인) is not productive
in Koryo-mar
, the dialect spoken by Koryo-saram, and as a result, only a few (mainly those who have studied Standard Korean) refer to themselves by this name; instead, Koryo-saram has come to be the preferred term.
of Korea. A small population of wealthy elite owned the farmlands in the country, and poor peasants found it difficult to survive. Koreans leaving the country in this period were obliged to move toward Russia, as the border with China was sealed by the Qing Dynasty
. However, the first Koreans in the Russian Empire, 761 families totalling 5,310 people, had actually migrated to Qing territory; the land they had settled on was ceded to Russia by the Convention of Peking
in 1860. Many peasants considered Siberia
to be a land where they could lead better lives, and so they subsequently migrated there. As early as 1863, 13 Korean households were recorded near Novukorut Bay. These numbers rose dramatically, and by 1869 Koreans composed 20% of the population of the Maritime Province
. Prior to the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway
, Koreans outnumbered Russians in the Russian Far East
; the local governors encouraged them to naturalize. The village of Blagoslovennoe was founded in 1870 by Korean migrants. The 1897 Russian Empire Census
found 26,005 Korean speakers (16,225 men and 9,780 women) in the whole of Russia.
In the early 20th century, both Russia and Korea came into conflict with Japan. Following the end of the Russo-Japanese War
in 1907, Russia enacted an anti-Korean law at the behest of Japan, under which the land of Korean farmers was confiscated and Korean laborers were laid off. However, Korean migration to Russia continued to grow; 1914 figures showed 64,309 Koreans (among whom 20,109 were Russian citizens). Even the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution did nothing to slow migration; in fact, after the repression of the 1919 March 1st Movement
in Japanese-ruled Korea
, migration actually intensified. Koreans leaders in Vladivostok
's Sinhanchon (literally, "New Korean Village") neighbourhood also provided support to the independence movement, making it a centre for nationalist activities, including arms supply; the Japanese attacked it on April 4, 1920, leaving hundreds dead. By 1923, the Korean population in the Soviet Union had grown to 106,817. The following year, the Soviets began taking measures to control Korean population movement to their territory; however, they were not completely successful until 1931; after that date, they halted all migration from Korea and required existing migrants to naturalise as Soviet citizens.
The Soviet policy of korenizatsiya
(indigenisation) resulted in the creation of 105 Korean village soviet
s (councils) in mixed-nationality raion, as well as an entire raion for the Korean nationality, the Pos'et Korean National Raion; these conducted their activities entirely in the Korean language
. The Soviet Koreans had a large number of their own official institutions, including 380 Korean schools, two teachers' colleges, one pedagogical school, three hospitals, a theatre, six journals, and seven newspapers (the largest of which, Vanguard, had a circulation of 10,000). The 1937 Census
showed 168,259 Koreans in the Soviet Union. However, officials in the Russian Far East viewed the Koreans' ethnic and family ties to the Japanese Empire with suspicion, which would soon set the stage for the deportation of the whole population.
and Vyacheslav Molotov
signed Resolution 1428-326 ss, "On the Exile of the Korean Population from border Raions of the Far East Kray", on 21 August. This order gave Koreans the option of crossing the border into Manchukuo
or Japanese-ruled Korea
, or face administrative exile to Central Asia
. Few took the former option. According to the report of Nikolai Yezhov
, 36,442 Korean families totalling 171,781 persons were deported by 25 October. The deported Koreans faced difficult conditions in Central Asia: monetary assistance promised by the government never materialised, and furthermore, most of the deported were rice farmers and fishers, who had difficulty adapting to the arid climate of their new home. Estimates based on population statistics suggest that 40,000 deported Koreans died in 1937 and 1938 for these reasons. However, the deportees cooperated to build irrigation works and start rice farms; within three years, they had recovered their original standard of living. The events of this period led to the formation of a cohesive identity among the Korean deportees. However, in schools for Soviet Korean children, the government switched Korean language from being the medium of instruction
to being taught merely as a second language in 1939, and from 1945 stopped it from being taught entirely; furthermore, the only publication in the Korean language was the Lenin Kichi. As a result, subsequent generations lost the use of the Korean language, which J. Otto Pohl described as "emasculat[ing] the expression of Korean culture in the Soviet Union. Up until the era of glasnost
, it was not permitted to speak openly of the deportations.
, including 198,000 in Uzbekistan
, 125,000 in Russia
, 105,000 in Kazakhstan
, 19,000 in Kyrgyzstan
, 9,000 in Ukraine
, 6,000 in Tajikistan
, 3,000 in Turkmenistan
, and 5,000 in other constituent republics.
gave a population of 148,556 Koreans in Russia, of which 75,835 were male and 72,721 female. About one-fourth reside in Siberia
and the Russian Far East
; the Korean population there trace their roots back to a variety of sources. Aside from roughly 33,000 CIS
nationals, mostly migrants retracing in reverse the 1937 deportation of their ancestors, between 4,000 and 12,000 North Korean migrant labourers
can be found in the region. Smaller numbers of South Koreans and ethnic Koreans from China have also come to the region to settle, invest, and/or engage in cross-border trade.
12,711 people defined themselves as ethnic Koreans, up from 8,669 in 1989. Of these only 17.5% gave Korean as their first language. The vast majority (76%) stated their mother tongue was Russian, whilst 5.5% stated Ukrainian
. The largest concentrations can be found in Kharkov, Kiev
, Odessa
, Nikolaev, Cherkassy, Lvov, Lugansk, Donetsk
, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhie, and Crimea
. The largest ethnic representative body, the Association of Koreans in Ukraine, is located in Kharkov, where roughly 150 Korean families reside; the first Korean language
school was opened in 1996 under their direction.
and Kazakhstan
. Korean culture in Kazakhstan is centered in Almaty
, the former capital. For much of the 20th century, this was the only place in Central Asia where a Korean language newspaper (the Koryo Shinmun) and Korean language theater were in operation. The Korean population here was sheltered by the local governor from the restrictions placed on them elsewhere. The censuses of Kazakhstan recorded 96,500 Koryo-saram in 1939, 74,000 in 1959, 81,600 in 1970, 92,000 in 1979, 100,700 in 1989, and 99,700 in 1999.
In Kyrgyzstan, the population has remained roughly stable over the past three censuses: 18,355 (1989), 19,784 (1999), and 17,299 (2009). This contrasts sharply with other non-indigenous groups such as Germans
, many of whom migrated to Germany after the breakup of the Soviet Union. South Korea never had any programme to promote return migration of their diaspora in Central Asia, unlike Germany. However, they have established organisations to promote Korean language and culture, such as the Korean Center of Education which opened in Bishkek in 2001. South Korean Christian missionaries are also active in the country.
The population in Uzbekistan is largely scattered in rural areas. This population has suffered in recent years from linguistic handicaps, as the Koryo-saram there spoke Russian
but not Uzbek
. After the independence of Uzbekistan
, many lost their jobs due to being unable to speak the national language. Some emigrated to the Russian Far East
, but found life difficult there as well.
There is also a small Korean community in Tajikistan
. Mass settlement of Koreans in the country began during the late 1950s and early 1960s, after the loosening of restrictions on their freedom of movement which had previously kept them confined to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Pull factors for migration included rich natural resources and a relatively mild climate. Their population grew to 2,400 in 1959, 11,000 in 1979, and 13,000 in 1989; most lived in the capital Dushanbe
, with smaller concentrations in Qurghonteppa
and Khujand
. Like Koreans in other parts of Central Asia, they generally possessed higher incomes compared to members of other ethnic groups. However, with the May 1992 onset of civil war in Tajikistan, many fled the country entirely; by 1996, their population had fallen by over half to 6,300 people. Most are engaged in agriculture and retail business. Violence continued even after the end of the civil war; in 2000, suspected Hizb ut-Tahrir
members exploded a bomb in a Korean Christian church in Dushanbe, killing 9 and wounding 30.
, the Red Army personnel who arrived in 1945–6, civilian advisors and teachers who arrived in the northern half o the peninsula in 1946–8, and individuals who repatriated from the Soviet Union to North Korea for personal reasons. Though it was common in most of the newly Communist countries of the Eastern Bloc
to receive Soviet-educated personnel who were from the country or had ancestral ethnic connections there, in North Korea such returned members of national diaspora played a more important role than in other countries.
Later, labour migration to South Korea would grow to a large size. , as many as 10,000 Uzbekistanis worked in South Korea, a sizable portion of them being ethnic Koreans. It is estimated that remittances
from South Korea to Uzbekistan exceed $100 million annually.
The ritual life of the Koryo-saram community has changed in various respects. Marriages have taken on the Russian style. At traditional Korean funerals, the coffin is taken out of the house either through the window or a single door threshold, however if there is more than one door threshold on the way out (e.g. in modern multi-stories buildings), three notches are made on each threshold.The name of the dead is traditionally written in hanja
, however, as hardly anyone is left among the Koryo-saram who can write in hanja, the name is generally written in hangul
only. On the other hand, the rituals for the first birthday and sixtieth anniversary have been preserved in their traditional form.
provinces in North Korea, and is dominated by meat soups and salty side dishes. It uses similar cooking techniques but is adapted to local ingredients, which resulted in invention of new dishes. For example, spicy carrot salad (known throughout the Soviet Union as Korean Carrots or Морковь по-корейски). is a Koryo-saram invention, was unknown in South Korea until recently. However, it has gained an international following rivalled perhaps only by pizza and french fries, being served in most cafeterias throughout the CIS, sold in all supermarkets, and featured regularly as a side dish on dinner tables and in holiday feasts set by all ethnicities of the former Soviet Union. On the other hand, some South Korean dishes such as bulgogi
, bibimbap
, Samgyeopsal
were relatively unknown to Koryo-saram. The list of koryo-saram dishes includes pigodi, kuksi, timpeni, khe, chartagi, kadi che, kosari che, chirgym che, panchan
, schirak tyamuri, kadyuri.
The introduction of international passports by newly independent CIS countries, resulted in further differences in pronunciation as Korean surnames had to be transliterated from Cyrillic into Latin. In addition to a surname, Koreans also use clan names (known as Bon-gwan
in Korea and pronounced as пой among koryo saram) denoting the place of origin.
Korean naming practises
and Russian naming practises
conflict in several important ways; Koryo-saram have resolved each of these conflicts in a different way, in some cases favouring Russian patterns, in others, Korean patterns.
and follow Russian naming patterns
, using a Russian given name, Russian-style patronymic (derived from the father's name, regardless of whether his name was Russian or Korean), and Korean surname. For example, Kim Jong-il
was registered as Yuri Irsenovich Kim (Юрий Ирсенович Ким) in Soviet records, where the "Irsen" in the patronymic was the Cyrillization
of the given name of his father Kim Il-sung
, known in the Soviet Union as Kim Ir Sen. Succeeding generations tended to have both a Russian given name and a Russian patronymic. This differs from the pattern typical in the US, where Korean American parents often register their children with a Korean given name as their legal middle name (e.g. Daniel Dae Kim, Harold Hongju Koh
).
and Islam Karimov. However, Koryo-saram names do not follow this practice.
syllable in common among all of their names; this is known as dollimja
. Russians have no equivalent practise. Koryo-saram often do not have Korean names, because of a poor command of the Korean language among their relatives; however, birth records show that many siblings have been given Russian names starting with the same letters of the alphabet by their parents, indicating that the practise of dollimja has continued in a localised form.
Due to deportation and the continuing urbanization of the population after 1952, the command of Korean among the Koryo-saram has continued to fall. This contrasts with other more rural minority groups such as the Dungan
, who have maintained a higher level of proficiency in their ethnic language. In 1989, the most recent year for which data are available, the number of Russian mother tongue speakers among the Koryo-saram population overtook that of Korean mother tongue speakers.
The dialect spoken by Koryo-saram is closer to the Hamgyŏng dialect
than to the Seoul dialect
, though somewhat mutated over the generations. Many of those who retain some command of Korean report difficulties communicating with South Koreans.
was the second largest import partner of Uzbekistan
, after Russia
, and one of its largest foreign investors. The car manufacturer Daewoo
set up a joint venture
(August 1992) and a factory in Asaka
, Andizhan province, in Uzbekistan.
The 2005 South Korean film
Wedding Campaign
, directed by Hwang Byung-kook, portrays two aging bachelor farmers from rural villages who hope to find wives. Having no romantic prospects in South Korea, they opt to go through an international mail-order bride
agency, which sends them to Uzbekistan and tries to match them with Korean women there.
Korean people
The Korean people are an ethnic group originating in the Korean peninsula and Manchuria. Koreans are one of the most ethnically and linguistically homogeneous groups in the world.-Names:...
in the post-Soviet states
Post-Soviet states
The post-Soviet states, also commonly known as the Former Soviet Union or former Soviet republics, are the 15 independent states that split off from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in its dissolution in December 1991...
use to refer to themselves. Approximately 500,000 ethnic Koreans reside in the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, primarily in the now-independent states of Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
. There are also large Korean communities in southern Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
(around Volgograd
Volgograd
Volgograd , formerly called Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad is an important industrial city and the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. It is long, north to south, situated on the western bank of the Volga River...
), the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
, and southern Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. These communities can be traced back to the Koreans who were living in the Russian Far East
Russian Far East
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...
during the late 19th century.
There is also a separate ethnic Korean community on the island of Sakhalin
Sakhalin
Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...
, typically referred to as Sakhalin Koreans
Sakhalin Koreans
Sakhalin Koreans are Russian citizens and residents of Korean descent living on Sakhalin Island, who trace their roots to the immigrants from the Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces of Korea during the late 1930s and early 1940s, the latter half of the Japanese colonial era...
. Some may identify as Koryo-saram, but many do not. Unlike the communities on the Russian mainland, which consist mostly of immigrants from the late 19th century and early 20th century, the ancestors of the Sakhalin Koreans came as immigrants from Gyeongsang
Gyeongsang
Gyeongsang was one of the eight provinces of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. Gyeongsang was located in the southeast of Korea....
and Jeolla
Jeolla
Jeolla was a province in southwestern Korea, one of the historical Eight Provinces of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. It consisted of the modern South Korean provinces of North Jeolla, South Jeolla and the Special City of Gwangju as well as Jeju Island...
provinces in the late 1930s and early 1940s, forced into service by the Japanese government to work in coal mines in Sakhalin (then known as Karafuto Prefecture
Karafuto Prefecture
, commonly called South Sakhalin, was the Japanese administrative division corresponding to Japanese territory on Sakhalin from 1905 to 1945. Through the Treaty of Portsmouth, the portion of Sakhalin south of 50°N became a colony of Japan in 1905...
) in order to fill labour shortages caused by World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Autonym
The word "Koryo" in "Koryo-saram" originated from the name of the Goryeo (Koryŏ) DynastyGoryeo
The Goryeo Dynasty or Koryŏ was a Korean dynasty established in 918 by Emperor Taejo. Korea gets its name from this kingdom which came to be pronounced Korea. It united the Later Three Kingdoms in 936 and ruled most of the Korean peninsula until it was removed by the Joseon dynasty in 1392...
from which "Korea" was derived. The name Soviet Korean was also used, more frequently before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russians may also lump Koryo-saram under the general label koreytsy ; however, this usage makes no distinctions between ethnic Koreans of the local nationality and the Korean nationals (citizens of South and North Koreas).
In Standard Korean, the term "Koryo-saram" is typically used to refer to historical figures from the Goryeo dynasty; to avoid ambiguity, Korean speakers use a word Goryeoin ' onMouseout='HidePop("52553")' href="/topics/Hanja">Hanja
Hanja
Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...
: 高麗人, meaning the same as "Koryo-saram") to refer to ethnic Koreans in the post-Soviet states. However, the Sino-Korean
Sino-Korean
Sino-Korean or Hanja-eo refers to the set of words in the Korean language vocabulary that originated from or were influenced by hanja. The Sino-Korean lexicon consists of both words loaned from Chinese and words coined in the Korean language using hanja.Sino-Korean words are one of the three main...
morpheme "-in" (인) is not productive
Productivity (linguistics)
In linguistics, productivity is the degree to which native speakers use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation. Since use to produce novel structures is the clearest proof of usage of a grammatical process, the evidence most often appealed to as establishing productivity is...
in Koryo-mar
Koryo-mar
Koryo-mar, Goryeomal or Koryŏmal is the dialect of the Korean language spoken by the Koryo-saram, ethnic Koreans in the former USSR. It is descended from the Hamgyŏng dialect...
, the dialect spoken by Koryo-saram, and as a result, only a few (mainly those who have studied Standard Korean) refer to themselves by this name; instead, Koryo-saram has come to be the preferred term.
Immigration to the Russian Far East and Siberia
The 19th century saw the decline of the Joseon DynastyJoseon Dynasty
Joseon , was a Korean state founded by Taejo Yi Seong-gye that lasted for approximately five centuries. It was founded in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Goryeo at what is today the city of Kaesong. Early on, Korea was retitled and the capital was relocated to modern-day Seoul...
of Korea. A small population of wealthy elite owned the farmlands in the country, and poor peasants found it difficult to survive. Koreans leaving the country in this period were obliged to move toward Russia, as the border with China was sealed by the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
. However, the first Koreans in the Russian Empire, 761 families totalling 5,310 people, had actually migrated to Qing territory; the land they had settled on was ceded to Russia by the Convention of Peking
Convention of Peking
The Convention of Peking or the First Convention of Peking is the name used for three different unequal treaties, which were concluded between Qing China and the United Kingdom, France, and Russia.-Background:...
in 1860. Many peasants considered Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
to be a land where they could lead better lives, and so they subsequently migrated there. As early as 1863, 13 Korean households were recorded near Novukorut Bay. These numbers rose dramatically, and by 1869 Koreans composed 20% of the population of the Maritime Province
Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai , informally known as Primorye , is a federal subject of Russia . Primorsky means "maritime" in Russian, hence the region is sometimes referred to as Maritime Province or Maritime Territory. Its administrative center is in the city of Vladivostok...
. Prior to the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway
Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world...
, Koreans outnumbered Russians in the Russian Far East
Russian Far East
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...
; the local governors encouraged them to naturalize. The village of Blagoslovennoe was founded in 1870 by Korean migrants. The 1897 Russian Empire Census
Russian Empire Census
The Russian Imperial Census of 1897 was the first and the only census carried out in the Russian Empire . It recorded demographic data as of ....
found 26,005 Korean speakers (16,225 men and 9,780 women) in the whole of Russia.
In the early 20th century, both Russia and Korea came into conflict with Japan. Following the end of the Russo-Japanese War
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
in 1907, Russia enacted an anti-Korean law at the behest of Japan, under which the land of Korean farmers was confiscated and Korean laborers were laid off. However, Korean migration to Russia continued to grow; 1914 figures showed 64,309 Koreans (among whom 20,109 were Russian citizens). Even the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution did nothing to slow migration; in fact, after the repression of the 1919 March 1st Movement
March 1st Movement
The March 1st Movement, or Samil Movement, was one of the earliest public displays of Korean resistance during the occupation of the Korean Empire by Japan. The name refers to an event that occurred on March 1, 1919, hence the movement's name, literally meaning "Three-One Movement" or "March First...
in Japanese-ruled Korea
Korea under Japanese rule
Korea was under Japanese rule as part of Japan's 35-year imperialist expansion . Japanese rule ended in 1945 shortly after the Japanese defeat in World War II....
, migration actually intensified. Koreans leaders in Vladivostok
Vladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...
's Sinhanchon (literally, "New Korean Village") neighbourhood also provided support to the independence movement, making it a centre for nationalist activities, including arms supply; the Japanese attacked it on April 4, 1920, leaving hundreds dead. By 1923, the Korean population in the Soviet Union had grown to 106,817. The following year, the Soviets began taking measures to control Korean population movement to their territory; however, they were not completely successful until 1931; after that date, they halted all migration from Korea and required existing migrants to naturalise as Soviet citizens.
The Soviet policy of korenizatsiya
Korenizatsiya
Korenizatsiya sometimes also called korenization, meaning "nativization" or "indigenization", literally "putting down roots", was the early Soviet nationalities policy promoted mostly in the 1920s but with a continuing legacy in later years...
(indigenisation) resulted in the creation of 105 Korean village soviet
Soviet (council)
Soviet was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar's Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union....
s (councils) in mixed-nationality raion, as well as an entire raion for the Korean nationality, the Pos'et Korean National Raion; these conducted their activities entirely in the Korean language
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
. The Soviet Koreans had a large number of their own official institutions, including 380 Korean schools, two teachers' colleges, one pedagogical school, three hospitals, a theatre, six journals, and seven newspapers (the largest of which, Vanguard, had a circulation of 10,000). The 1937 Census
Soviet Census (1937)
The Soviet Census held on January 6, 1937 was the most controversial of the censuses taken within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The census results were destroyed and its organizers were sent to the Gulag as saboteurs because the census showed much lower population figures than...
showed 168,259 Koreans in the Soviet Union. However, officials in the Russian Far East viewed the Koreans' ethnic and family ties to the Japanese Empire with suspicion, which would soon set the stage for the deportation of the whole population.
Deportation to Central Asia
In 1937, facing reports from the NKVD that the Japanese had infiltrated the Russian Far East by means of ethnic Korean spies, Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
and Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
signed Resolution 1428-326 ss, "On the Exile of the Korean Population from border Raions of the Far East Kray", on 21 August. This order gave Koreans the option of crossing the border into Manchukuo
Manchukuo
Manchukuo or Manshū-koku was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The region was the historical homeland of the Manchus, who founded the Qing Empire in China...
or Japanese-ruled Korea
Korea under Japanese rule
Korea was under Japanese rule as part of Japan's 35-year imperialist expansion . Japanese rule ended in 1945 shortly after the Japanese defeat in World War II....
, or face administrative exile to Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
. Few took the former option. According to the report of Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov or Ezhov was a senior figure in the NKVD under Joseph Stalin during the period of the Great Purge. His reign is sometimes known as the "Yezhovshchina" , "the Yezhov era", a term that began to be used during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s...
, 36,442 Korean families totalling 171,781 persons were deported by 25 October. The deported Koreans faced difficult conditions in Central Asia: monetary assistance promised by the government never materialised, and furthermore, most of the deported were rice farmers and fishers, who had difficulty adapting to the arid climate of their new home. Estimates based on population statistics suggest that 40,000 deported Koreans died in 1937 and 1938 for these reasons. However, the deportees cooperated to build irrigation works and start rice farms; within three years, they had recovered their original standard of living. The events of this period led to the formation of a cohesive identity among the Korean deportees. However, in schools for Soviet Korean children, the government switched Korean language from being the medium of instruction
Medium of instruction
Medium of instruction is a language used in teaching. It may or may not be the official language of the country or territory. Where the first language of students is different from the official language, it may be used as the medium of instruction for part or all of schooling. Bilingual or...
to being taught merely as a second language in 1939, and from 1945 stopped it from being taught entirely; furthermore, the only publication in the Korean language was the Lenin Kichi. As a result, subsequent generations lost the use of the Korean language, which J. Otto Pohl described as "emasculat[ing] the expression of Korean culture in the Soviet Union. Up until the era of glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
, it was not permitted to speak openly of the deportations.
Post-deportation
Scholars estimated that , roughly 470,000 Koryo-saram were living in the Commonwealth of Independent StatesCommonwealth of Independent States
The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....
, including 198,000 in Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
, 125,000 in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, 105,000 in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, 19,000 in Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
, 9,000 in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, 6,000 in Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....
, 3,000 in Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan , formerly also known as Turkmenia is one of the Turkic states in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic . Turkmenistan is one of the six independent Turkic states...
, and 5,000 in other constituent republics.
Russia
The 2002 censusRussian Census (2002)
Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...
gave a population of 148,556 Koreans in Russia, of which 75,835 were male and 72,721 female. About one-fourth reside in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
and the Russian Far East
Russian Far East
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...
; the Korean population there trace their roots back to a variety of sources. Aside from roughly 33,000 CIS
Commonwealth of Independent States
The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union....
nationals, mostly migrants retracing in reverse the 1937 deportation of their ancestors, between 4,000 and 12,000 North Korean migrant labourers
North Koreans in Russia
North Koreans in Russia consist mainly of three groups: international students, guest workers, and defectors and refugees. A 2006 study by Kyung Hee University estimated their total population at roughly 10,000....
can be found in the region. Smaller numbers of South Koreans and ethnic Koreans from China have also come to the region to settle, invest, and/or engage in cross-border trade.
Ukraine
In the 2001 census in UkraineUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
12,711 people defined themselves as ethnic Koreans, up from 8,669 in 1989. Of these only 17.5% gave Korean as their first language. The vast majority (76%) stated their mother tongue was Russian, whilst 5.5% stated Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
. The largest concentrations can be found in Kharkov, Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
, Nikolaev, Cherkassy, Lvov, Lugansk, Donetsk
Donetsk
Donetsk , is a large city in eastern Ukraine on the Kalmius river. Administratively, it is a center of Donetsk Oblast, while historically, it is the unofficial capital and largest city of the economic and cultural Donets Basin region...
, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhie, and Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
. The largest ethnic representative body, the Association of Koreans in Ukraine, is located in Kharkov, where roughly 150 Korean families reside; the first Korean language
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
school was opened in 1996 under their direction.
Central Asia
The majority of Koryo-saram in Central Asia reside in UzbekistanUzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
and Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
. Korean culture in Kazakhstan is centered in Almaty
Almaty
Almaty , also known by its former names Verny and Alma-Ata , is the former capital of Kazakhstan and the nation's largest city, with a population of 1,348,500...
, the former capital. For much of the 20th century, this was the only place in Central Asia where a Korean language newspaper (the Koryo Shinmun) and Korean language theater were in operation. The Korean population here was sheltered by the local governor from the restrictions placed on them elsewhere. The censuses of Kazakhstan recorded 96,500 Koryo-saram in 1939, 74,000 in 1959, 81,600 in 1970, 92,000 in 1979, 100,700 in 1989, and 99,700 in 1999.
In Kyrgyzstan, the population has remained roughly stable over the past three censuses: 18,355 (1989), 19,784 (1999), and 17,299 (2009). This contrasts sharply with other non-indigenous groups such as Germans
Germans in Kyrgyzstan
-Migration history:During the 1800s, groups of Mennonites from Germany settled throughout the Russian Empire; they began to come to the territory which is today Kyrgyzstan in the late 19th century. Many other Germans were brought to the country forcibly, as part of the Stalin-era internal...
, many of whom migrated to Germany after the breakup of the Soviet Union. South Korea never had any programme to promote return migration of their diaspora in Central Asia, unlike Germany. However, they have established organisations to promote Korean language and culture, such as the Korean Center of Education which opened in Bishkek in 2001. South Korean Christian missionaries are also active in the country.
The population in Uzbekistan is largely scattered in rural areas. This population has suffered in recent years from linguistic handicaps, as the Koryo-saram there spoke Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
but not Uzbek
Uzbek language
Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 25.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...
. After the independence of Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
, many lost their jobs due to being unable to speak the national language. Some emigrated to the Russian Far East
Russian Far East
Russian Far East is a term that refers to the Russian part of the Far East, i.e., extreme east parts of Russia, between Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia and the Pacific Ocean...
, but found life difficult there as well.
There is also a small Korean community in Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....
. Mass settlement of Koreans in the country began during the late 1950s and early 1960s, after the loosening of restrictions on their freedom of movement which had previously kept them confined to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Pull factors for migration included rich natural resources and a relatively mild climate. Their population grew to 2,400 in 1959, 11,000 in 1979, and 13,000 in 1989; most lived in the capital Dushanbe
Dushanbe
-Economy:Coal, lead, and arsenic are mined nearby in the cities of Nurek and Kulob allowing for the industrialization of Dushanbe. The Nurek Dam, the world's highest as of 2008, generates 95% of Tajikistan's electricity, and another dam, the Roghun Dam, is planned on the Vakhsh River...
, with smaller concentrations in Qurghonteppa
Qurghonteppa
Qurghonteppa or Kurganteppa is a city in southwestern Tajikistan. It is the capital of the Khatlon region and it is located 100 km from Dushanbe. It is estimated that the population of the city is close to 85,000 people, making it the third-largest city in the country. The population...
and Khujand
Khujand
Khujand , also transliterated as Khudzhand, , formerly Khodjend or Khodzhent until 1936 and Leninabad until 1991, is the second-largest city of Tajikistan. It is situated on the Syr Darya River at the mouth of the Fergana Valley...
. Like Koreans in other parts of Central Asia, they generally possessed higher incomes compared to members of other ethnic groups. However, with the May 1992 onset of civil war in Tajikistan, many fled the country entirely; by 1996, their population had fallen by over half to 6,300 people. Most are engaged in agriculture and retail business. Violence continued even after the end of the civil war; in 2000, suspected Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Sunni. pan-Islamic political organisation but keeps it open for all including shias,some of its beliefs are against sunni school of thought, whose goal is for all Muslim countries to unify as an Islamic state or caliphate ruled by Islamic law and with a caliph...
members exploded a bomb in a Korean Christian church in Dushanbe, killing 9 and wounding 30.
Return migration to Korea
There was some minor return migration of Soviet Koreans to Korea in the first half of the 20th century. They formed 4 main groups: those sent for intelligence work during the Japanese colonial periodKorea under Japanese rule
Korea was under Japanese rule as part of Japan's 35-year imperialist expansion . Japanese rule ended in 1945 shortly after the Japanese defeat in World War II....
, the Red Army personnel who arrived in 1945–6, civilian advisors and teachers who arrived in the northern half o the peninsula in 1946–8, and individuals who repatriated from the Soviet Union to North Korea for personal reasons. Though it was common in most of the newly Communist countries of the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
to receive Soviet-educated personnel who were from the country or had ancestral ethnic connections there, in North Korea such returned members of national diaspora played a more important role than in other countries.
Later, labour migration to South Korea would grow to a large size. , as many as 10,000 Uzbekistanis worked in South Korea, a sizable portion of them being ethnic Koreans. It is estimated that remittances
Remittances
A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to his or her home country. Note that in 19th century usage a remittance man was someone exiled overseas and sent an allowance on condition that he not return home....
from South Korea to Uzbekistan exceed $100 million annually.
Culture
After their arrival in Central Asia, the Koryo-saram quickly established a way of life different from that of neighboring peoples. They set up irrigation works and became known throughout the region as rice farmers. They interacted little with the nomadic peoples around them, and focused on education. Although they soon ceased to wear traditional Korean clothing, they adapted Western-style dress rather than the clothing worn by the Central Asian peoples.The ritual life of the Koryo-saram community has changed in various respects. Marriages have taken on the Russian style. At traditional Korean funerals, the coffin is taken out of the house either through the window or a single door threshold, however if there is more than one door threshold on the way out (e.g. in modern multi-stories buildings), three notches are made on each threshold.The name of the dead is traditionally written in hanja
Hanja
Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...
, however, as hardly anyone is left among the Koryo-saram who can write in hanja, the name is generally written in hangul
Hangul
Hangul,Pronounced or ; Korean: 한글 Hangeul/Han'gŭl or 조선글 Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul the Korean alphabet, is the native alphabet of the Korean language. It is a separate script from Hanja, the logographic Chinese characters which are also sometimes used to write Korean...
only. On the other hand, the rituals for the first birthday and sixtieth anniversary have been preserved in their traditional form.
Cuisine
Koryo-saram have preserved the Korean cuisine particularly well. The cuisine of the Koryo-saram is closest to that of the HamgyongHamgyong
Hamgyŏng was one of the Eight Provinces of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. Hamgyŏng was located in the northeast of Korea. The provincial capital was Hamhŭng.-History:...
provinces in North Korea, and is dominated by meat soups and salty side dishes. It uses similar cooking techniques but is adapted to local ingredients, which resulted in invention of new dishes. For example, spicy carrot salad (known throughout the Soviet Union as Korean Carrots or Морковь по-корейски). is a Koryo-saram invention, was unknown in South Korea until recently. However, it has gained an international following rivalled perhaps only by pizza and french fries, being served in most cafeterias throughout the CIS, sold in all supermarkets, and featured regularly as a side dish on dinner tables and in holiday feasts set by all ethnicities of the former Soviet Union. On the other hand, some South Korean dishes such as bulgogi
Bulgogi
Bulgogi is a Korean dish that usually consists of marinated barbecued beef, although chicken or pork may also be used. It is listed at number 23 on World's 50 most delicious foods readers' poll complied by CNN Go in 2011.-Etymology:...
, bibimbap
Bibimbap
Bibimbap is a signature Korean dish. The word literally means "mixed meal." Bibimbap is served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with namul and gochujang . A raw or fried egg and sliced meat are common additions. The ingredients are stirred together thoroughly just before eating...
, Samgyeopsal
Samgyeopsal
Samgyeopsal is a popular Korean dish. Commonly served as an evening meal, it consists of thick, fatty slices of pork belly meat . The meat, usually neither marinated nor seasoned, is cooked on a grill at the diners' table...
were relatively unknown to Koryo-saram. The list of koryo-saram dishes includes pigodi, kuksi, timpeni, khe, chartagi, kadi che, kosari che, chirgym che, panchan
Banchan
Banchan refers to small dishes of food served along with cooked rice in Korean cuisine. This word is used both in the singular and plural....
, schirak tyamuri, kadyuri.
Personal and family names
Many Korean surnames, when Cyrillized, are spelled and pronounced slightly differently from the romanisations used in the U.S. and the resulting common pronunciations, as can be seen in the table at right. Some surnames of Koryo-saram have a particle "gai" added to them, such as Kogai or Nogai. The origin of this is unclear.The introduction of international passports by newly independent CIS countries, resulted in further differences in pronunciation as Korean surnames had to be transliterated from Cyrillic into Latin. In addition to a surname, Koreans also use clan names (known as Bon-gwan
Bon-gwan
Bon-gwan is the concept of clan in Korea, which is used to distinguish clans that happen to share a same family name . Since Korea has been traditionally a Buddhist country this clan system is cognate with Gotra in Sanskrit texts and shares most features...
in Korea and pronounced as пой among koryo saram) denoting the place of origin.
Korean naming practises
Korean name
A Korean name consists of a family name followed by a given name, as used by the Korean people in both North Korea and South Korea. In the Korean language, 'ireum' or 'seong-myeong' usually refers to the family name and given name together...
and Russian naming practises
Names in Russian Empire, Soviet Union and CIS countries
The Eastern Slavic naming customs are the traditions for determining a person's name in countries influenced by East Slavic linguistic tradition. This relates to modern Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan...
conflict in several important ways; Koryo-saram have resolved each of these conflicts in a different way, in some cases favouring Russian patterns, in others, Korean patterns.
Patronymics
After the first generation of settlers, Koryo-saram tended to abandon traditional Korean naming practicesKorean name
A Korean name consists of a family name followed by a given name, as used by the Korean people in both North Korea and South Korea. In the Korean language, 'ireum' or 'seong-myeong' usually refers to the family name and given name together...
and follow Russian naming patterns
Names in Russian Empire, Soviet Union and CIS countries
The Eastern Slavic naming customs are the traditions for determining a person's name in countries influenced by East Slavic linguistic tradition. This relates to modern Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan...
, using a Russian given name, Russian-style patronymic (derived from the father's name, regardless of whether his name was Russian or Korean), and Korean surname. For example, Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il, also written as Kim Jong Il, birth name Yuri Irsenovich Kim born 16 February 1941 or 16 February 1942 , is the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea...
was registered as Yuri Irsenovich Kim (Юрий Ирсенович Ким) in Soviet records, where the "Irsen" in the patronymic was the Cyrillization
Cyrillization
A Cyrillization is a system for rendering words of a language that normally uses a writing system other than the Cyrillic alphabet into a Cyrillic alphabet. A Cyrillization scheme needs to be applied, for example, to transcribe names of German, Chinese, or American people and places for use in...
of the given name of his father Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung was a Korean communist politician who led the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from its founding in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death...
, known in the Soviet Union as Kim Ir Sen. Succeeding generations tended to have both a Russian given name and a Russian patronymic. This differs from the pattern typical in the US, where Korean American parents often register their children with a Korean given name as their legal middle name (e.g. Daniel Dae Kim, Harold Hongju Koh
Harold Hongju Koh
Harold Hongju Koh is an Korean American lawyer and legal scholar. He currently serves as the Legal Adviser of the Department of State. He was nominated to his current position by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2009, and confirmed by the Senate on June 25, 2009.In public service, Koh...
).
Surnames of married women
Another area in which traditional Korean naming practices clashed with Russian custom was in the use of surnames by married couples. In Russia, a wife traditionally takes her husband's surname after marriage, whereas Korean women retain their original surname even after marriage. In this regard, the Koryo-saram appear to have kept to Korean tradition much more closely, rather than adopting the Russian practice; for example, out of 18 ethnic Korean babies born in the Kalinin district of Alma Ata, Kazakhstan in 1980, 10 were to parents with different surnames, possibly indicating the extent of this practice. However, adoption of the husband's surname by the wife is not a universal custom among Russians either, and deviations from it are viewed as normal.Declining for gender
Russian surnames are typically declined to indicate the gender of their bearer, while Korean surnames are not, as the Korean language lacks grammatical gender. In the former Soviet countries, many inhabitants, notably the Turkic peoples, had suffixes ov or ova added to their surnames; examples include presidents Nursultan NazarbayevNursultan Nazarbayev
Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev has served as the President of Kazakhstan since the nation received its independence in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union...
and Islam Karimov. However, Koryo-saram names do not follow this practice.
Generation names
In Korea, it is common for siblings and cousins of the same generation to have one hanjaHanja
Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...
syllable in common among all of their names; this is known as dollimja
Generation name
Generation name, variously zibei or banci, is one of the characters in a traditional Chinese name, and is so called because each member of a generation share that character, unlike surnames or given names...
. Russians have no equivalent practise. Koryo-saram often do not have Korean names, because of a poor command of the Korean language among their relatives; however, birth records show that many siblings have been given Russian names starting with the same letters of the alphabet by their parents, indicating that the practise of dollimja has continued in a localised form.
Language
| 1970 | 1979 | 1989 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total population | 357,507 | 388,926 | 438,650 |
| Korean L1 First language A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity... |
245,076 | 215,504 | 216,811 |
| Russian L1 First language A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity... |
111,949 | 172,710 | 219,953 |
| Russian L2 Second language A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas .... |
179,776 | 185,357 | 189,929 |
| Other L2 Second language A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas .... |
6,034 | 8,938 | 16,217 |
Due to deportation and the continuing urbanization of the population after 1952, the command of Korean among the Koryo-saram has continued to fall. This contrasts with other more rural minority groups such as the Dungan
Dungan
Dungans , called by Chinese and translated in Chinese language as Hui , are an ethnic group of Persian origin. The Dungans are dispersive people, comprising the majority population of Ningxia Autonomous Region, and scatter in other parts of China...
, who have maintained a higher level of proficiency in their ethnic language. In 1989, the most recent year for which data are available, the number of Russian mother tongue speakers among the Koryo-saram population overtook that of Korean mother tongue speakers.
The dialect spoken by Koryo-saram is closer to the Hamgyŏng dialect
Hamgyong dialect
Hamgyŏng dialect is a dialect of the Korean language used in the North Hamgyŏng, South Hamgyŏng, and Ryanggang Provinces of North Korea, as well as the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of northeast China...
than to the Seoul dialect
Seoul dialect
The Seoul dialect is the basis of the standard language of Korean in South Korea. It is spoken in the Seoul National Capital Area, which includes Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi. The dialect does not merely mean 'a standard accent'. The exact form of the South Korea's standard accent is that of...
, though somewhat mutated over the generations. Many of those who retain some command of Korean report difficulties communicating with South Koreans.
Relations with Korean expatriates
Probably as a consequence of ethnic ties, South KoreaSouth Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
was the second largest import partner of Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
, after Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and one of its largest foreign investors. The car manufacturer Daewoo
Daewoo
Daewoo or the Daewoo Group was a major South Korean chaebol . It was founded on 22 March 1967 as Daewoo Industrial and was dismantled by the Korean government in 1999...
set up a joint venture
Joint venture
A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...
(August 1992) and a factory in Asaka
Asaka, Uzbekistan
Asaka is a city in Andijan Province, Uzbekistan, to the east of Andijan in the Ferghana Valley. It was formerly known as Leninsk during the communist era. The first automobile assembly plant in Central Asia was opened there by an Uzbekistani-South Korean joint venture, UzDaewoo.-See also:* List of...
, Andizhan province, in Uzbekistan.
The 2005 South Korean film
Cinema of Korea
Korean cinema encompasses the motion picture industries of North and South Korea. As with all aspects of Korean life during the past century, the film industry has often been at the mercy of political events, from the late Joseon dynasty to the Korean War to domestic governmental interference...
Wedding Campaign
Wedding Campaign
Wedding Campaign is 2005 South Korean film about two aging bachelor farmers from Gyeongsang Province. Unable to find wives in Korea willing to move to the countryside, they go on a 10-day 'campaign' in Uzbekistan, where local matchmakers attempt to pair them up with local ethnic Korean women. It...
, directed by Hwang Byung-kook, portrays two aging bachelor farmers from rural villages who hope to find wives. Having no romantic prospects in South Korea, they opt to go through an international mail-order bride
Mail-order bride
Mail-order bride is a label applied to a woman who publishes her intent to marry someone from another country. This term is considered offensive by some people. The mail-order bride industry is the economic trade of contracted domestic partnerships, often between citizens of different countries or...
agency, which sends them to Uzbekistan and tries to match them with Korean women there.
See also
- List of Koryo-saram
- South Korea-Russia relations
- Russians in KoreaRussians in KoreaRussians in Korea do not form a very large population, but they have a history going back to the era of the Korean Empire. The community of Russian subjects/citizens in Korea has historically included not just ethnic Russians, but members of minority groups of Russia as well, such as Tatars, Poles,...
- DunganDunganDungans , called by Chinese and translated in Chinese language as Hui , are an ethnic group of Persian origin. The Dungans are dispersive people, comprising the majority population of Ningxia Autonomous Region, and scatter in other parts of China...
, the Turkic name for HuiHui peopleThe Hui people are an ethnic group in China, defined as Chinese speaking people descended from foreign Muslims. They are typically distinguished by their practice of Islam, however some also practice other religions, and many are direct descendants of Silk Road travelers.In modern People's...
ChineseChinese peopleThe term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
who settled in Central Asia. - Workers' Party of KoreaWorkers' Party of KoreaThe Workers' Party of Korea is the ruling Communist party of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea , commonly known as North Korea. It is also called the Korean Workers' Party...
, whose predecessors were founded by Korean nationalists in exile in the Soviet Union. - Zheruiyk - Promised land(also known as "Atazhurt")imdb - film about kazakhstani koreans